Decided on a handshake
by Loupee
Summary: The Hunger Games do not exist but the people of Panem's districts are still made to pay under the tyranny of their glorious leader President Snow. Struggling to make ends meet in a world full of poverty, cruelty and the angry rumblings of rebellion, Katniss accepts a deal that will keep her family from hunger and her future is decided on a handshake. REMOVED


**Decided on a Handshake**

 **~.~.~**

 **Chapter 1**

Bradlee Marshal wasn't the first person I knew to die, and he wasn't the first in our district to go the way he did, but he was the first person who was my own age. Someone I had grown up with, who I had seen every day in school. He seemed so quiet, so ordinary, certainly not outspoken like some of the others boys. Yet it was Bradlee who boarded a train three days ago headed for the Capitol, although everyone knows neither he nor his family had the money for a ticket. And who, in the midst of the crowded Captiol Central train station, blew himself and thirty other people to bits with bomb he'd hidden, strapped to his chest, beneath his heavy winter coat.

The Capitol authorities don't allow the funerals of rebels, or _terrorists_ , as they refer to them - not that there was much of Bradlee left to bury. But tonight there is an unofficial ceremony for him, a laying to rest of his spirit. Amidst the tears and condolences, murmurs of ' _martyr_ ' and ' _dying for the cause_ _'_ can also be heard, mainly amongst the younger men, who tend to be the angriest and most vocal. I think they're all idiots, honouring someone for doing such a thing. I don't see anything heroic in what Bradlee did. It's not like it did us any good; we are no closer to freeing ourselves from the Capitol's control as a result. It will only be worse now. There are always repercussions after a suicide bombing or an attack on Capitol outposts; they expect a price to be paid.

The tanks arrived on special trains the same day Bradlee died, rumbling through the streets with their guns pointed at us whilst announcements played from the town's loud speakers _advising_ us — for the sake of the continued safety of the united districts of Panem — to hand over all known terrorists. They told us that they didn't wish to hurt the rest of the innocent population, but if we did not comply by coming forward with information that they would have no alternative but to search every building and treat every citizen as a suspect.

I couldn't understand how they knew Bradlee was one of us and not from another district, but Gale said they would have seen his face on the security cameras in the station and identified him that way. He explained to me, with condescending incredulity that I could be so naive, that the Capitol has photographs of each and every inhabitant of the 12 districts. They can match images of any citizen with those stored in their archives within seconds. They keep a track of everything we do. I knew there were cameras positioned throughout the district, but I never thought for a minute that they would keep every little bit of film, that stored somewhere in the Capitol are images of me going about my dreary, mundane life. Gale expects they are currently trawling through every recording they have of Bradlee to see where he went and who he spoke to. Anyone suspected of being involved or having knowledge of what happened three days ago will be taken away to be interrogated, and at the moment everyone is a suspect.

I am glad I didn't know Bradlee very well. Perhaps I didn't know him at all, as I would never have thought he would do such a thing. I can't stop thinking about him and wondering if he really did it for the cause, or whether there was another reason.

Bradlee's father died five winters ago, in the same fall-in at the mine that also took both Gale's father and my own. Bradlee had three younger sisters and his mother had been ill for the past year. He was the only man in a house full of females to support, they were clearly struggling. Even if his mother had not grown too ill to work, there are no women's jobs in our district that pay enough to feed a family and keep them sustained.

Even amongst the comparatively rich merchant families women merely serve alongside their husbands in their businesses. Everything—money, houses, shops—belongs to the men. Property always passes from father to son, never husband to wife or father to daughter. In families where there are no sons, the eldest daughter must marry young, before the risk of her father dying without a direct heir becomes too great. If she marries, her husband will take her family name, essentially being adopted by his new in-laws, and the business and property can then be left to him. It is the arrangement every merchant mother hopes for her second son, going from bottom of the rung and a burden on the family's income to being his own business owner, with no more effort than a simple 'I do' and a signature on the bottom of a piece of paper.

But there was no such option for Bradlee, and with no dowry to offer for his sisters they had little hope of making a good match. They were all destined to be a second, or more likely, a third wife, and everyone knows that those are little more than domestic slaves. He certainly couldn't have hoped that they would find a marriage that would provide a comfortable setting for their mother in her old age. Bradlee faced a lifetime working in the same mine that took his father's life, struggling to make ends meet. So it is possible that it wasn't so much the freedom fight as his family's future that made him take that train to the Capitol.

It is a widely known fact that the families of those who give their lives for the rebellion will be looked after. They will never go hungry again, will never lose the roof above their heads. They will not have to share the bed and bear the children of a man some twenty or thirty years older than themselves, just to ensure the rest of their family has enough to eat.

So whilst all the idiots about me, drunk on alcohol and idealistic righteousness, talk about Bradlee's bravery to make a stand against the oppression of the Capitol's control, I am wondering how he was recruited. Did he seek them out, or did they sense the desperation of his situation and come to find him? And if that is true, how long before they come to talk to me?

There has been no bread in the house for over two weeks now and the very last of the dried meat was eaten this morning. Since the tanks rolled into town, I have not dared attempt to venture past the town's perimeter fence to hunt. In the past, the electricity that was supposed to pass through it was only switched on intermittently, as a means of saving money, but now it hums day and night with enough charge to stop a man's heart with one careless touch.

Even if I could get past the fence, there's no guarantee that the risk wouldn't be for nothing and that I wouldn't return home just as empty-handed. It is autumn already, but we have only had a handful of rainy days so far this year. The lake, and then the river, dried up months ago, and the trees have been bare of fruit. If you dig down deep enough, you can still find some water running below the surface, but most of the animals simply up and moved further north towards the mountains, where it is less arid. I am not the only one who relied on the forest to feed my family, and between us, we have stripped it of what little it had left to offer.

It will take months, even after the rains and the animals have returned, for it to reach the point where it can comfortably support us all again. And even longer to guarantee the surplus I need so I can trade at market for the basics we need survive.

My mother is not fit to work and my sister is still in school. I have been supporting us as best I can, but without meat to sell there is little else I can do. Anything of any worth in the house was sold years ago.

I have only two options, seeing as there is no profitable work to be had: join Bradlee and ensure our survival that way, or hope to I make a marriage match that can feed my family. I'm not keen to do either.

I leave the funeral gathering before it has the chance to get out of control. Angry men with the fire of rebellion and alcohol in their blood are bound to attract the attention of the increased Capitol forces before long. A curfew was imposed on the town the same day the tanks arrived. I should have been home hours ago. If I am caught, I will be fined or whipped, and considering our financial circumstances I'm not sure which would be worse. I only went tonight in the first place with the hope that there would be something to eat. But there wasn't. Black-market alcohol, yes, but food, no.

I have to pass through the centre of town to get back to the Seam area that is home to the district's miners and their families. Most of the respectable merchant families in town wouldn't dare set foot there, in what they consider to be a squalid slum. The Capitol is constantly attempting to control the sprawling lack of structure of the area that grows and spreads without planning or design every time a new shack is thrown up, but that is exactly what I love about the area I call home. I see a beauty in the organic growth that springs up from grit and ingenuity, that isn't dictated by the blue plans and red tape of a bureaucrat who sits in an office miles away. The peacekeepers may come from time to time to rip the buildings down and bulldoze straight, neat roads, but within the space of a week the shacks of wood, tin and card will be back standing proud once again, a testament to its inhabitants' resilience.

I avoid the main street that is lined with shopfronts and lit with streetlights, sticking to the dark back alleyways for as long as I can, but halfway down the hill my path becomes blocked. Here many of the merchant families who own the shops have extended their living quarters by building out onto the alley or enclosing it to create high-walled courtyards, effectively creating a dead end. I have no alternative but to head onto the main thoroughfare for a while.

I keep to the shadows, hugging the walls of the buildings. I haven't gone far when I see them: two peacekeepers coming up the hill towards me. I can see the silhouettes of their guns, held in both hands across their bodies as they march perfectly in step with each other. They haven't seen me yet, but there is nowhere to hide, no openings to duck into. When they reach me, I will be a sitting duck.

I look about me, wondering if I can jump up onto one of the shops' awnings that have been folded up for the night, when I hear my name called.

It's too late. I've been spotted.

* * *

Woo Hoo! Its only taken me about a week to work out how to upload this on fanfic! Bloody doc manager hates me!

I can't believe I only started writing this story to get over the writer's block I had on other story and now I've been working on this short one for almost a year! (I've been busy honest) I have to confess that when I started writing it, way back last Christmas, there was a lot of Sing-a-long Frozen being watched in the house and somewhere along the line Peeta and Christophe may have melded together to become the same character. But no reindeers I promise.

Unlike everything else I've been writing, this story is actually (almost) complete - thanks to the amazing, incredibly talented Court81981 - so I should be updating frequently.

Thank you for reading, I'd love to hear what you think.


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